


bright as a starling

by deathsweetqueen



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Established Relationship, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:49:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Tony meets Sam Wilson when he makes the EXO-7 FALCON wings and Rhodey asks him to present the wings to the two pilots who will actually be wearing them.Tony whinges about it for a whole five minutes before he agrees, because Rhodey’s the one person who can get him to do things with minimal complaints.He enters the room with a few officers and there, in the centre, are the two pararescue gentlemen who will be wearing the wings.He offers his hand and says, “Tony Stark.”“Holy shit,” is the response that he gets from the man whose hand he is not shaking.The man whose hand he is shaking just grins at him, andholy shitseems to be the correct response, just coming from Tony instead.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Sam Wilson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 164





	bright as a starling

Tony meets Sam Wilson when he makes the EXO-7 FALCON wings and Rhodey asks him to present the wings to the two pilots who will actually be wearing them.

Tony whinges about it for a whole five minutes before he agrees, because Rhodey’s the one person who can get him to do things with minimal complaints.

He enters the room with a few officers and there, in the centre, are the two pararescue gentlemen who will be wearing the wings.

He offers his hand and says, “Tony Stark.”

“Holy shit,” is the response that he gets from the man whose hand he is _not_ shaking.

The man whose hand he _is_ shaking just grins at him, and _holy shit_ seems to be the correct response, just coming from Tony instead.

“Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson, sir,” the man replies, and Tony falls just a little further into lust and feelings.

“Please, please don’t call me sir,” Tony sighs. “I’m not nearly old enough to be called _sir_.”

Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson just laughs. “So, these are the wings, huh?” He stares at the wings on the table with no small amount of awe and hunger.

“These are the wings,” Tony agrees, patting them with the proud papa bear air that he takes with all of his creations.

“So, what do I have to do to get them in the air?” Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson drawls, winking at him.

If Tony didn’t know better, he’d say that Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson is flirting with him.

But he knows better.

* * *

When they’re done testing out the wings, and Tony has stifled that wistful, yearning feeling in his body that always rises when he sees someone in the air, the sudden longing to join them, he’s left alone with Staff Sergeant Wilson in the room where they’d met.

“So,” Tony says, casually, “can I buy you coffee?”

Sam lifts an eyebrow. “Coffee?”

“I meant in a _I find you attractive and I’d like to get to know you better_ kind of way, but it doesn’t have to be, especially if you’re straight, which is fine. Weird, but fine.”

Sam grins. “I’m gonna go with yes for coffee, and yes, I do also mean it in a _I find you attractive and I’d like to get to know you better_ kind of way.”

Tony feels something bright unfold in his chest, like relief, like gladness, and he smiles back at Sam, easily. “Okay, then, is now… well, is now a good time?” he asks, rubbing the back of his head.

“Now’s a _great_ time,” Sam replies, without missing a beat.

On their way out, Sam pauses. “You are buying, right? ‘Cause I just want to point out the fact that you’re a billionaire, and I earn a military salary.”

Tony snorts. “Who do you think I am? Of course I’m paying.”

“Steak dinner it is,” Sam teases.

Tony lifts an eyebrow. “You know I’m a vegetarian, right?”

Sam ducks his head in embarrassment. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend–”

“No, I’ll buy you a steak dinner, but as long as I can steal your fries.” Tony pauses. “Fries _do_ come with a steak dinner, right? Or is my understanding of pop culture like really incorrect?”

“We can always order some extra, if it doesn’t come with it?” Sam offers.

“Yes, please, thank God. I just need fries.”

* * *

Falling in love is something that Tony doesn’t like to do often, mostly because he’s one to fall in love easily, and it never ends well for him.

But boy, is Sam Wilson easy to fall in love with.

He’s kind and generous and funny and wicked smart and handsome. He’s loyal to a fault and determined and always has his eye on the ball, and when Tony sees him playing with his niece, Jody, it twists something in Tony’s belly.

So, Tony falls for him, falls hard.

He doesn’t tell Sam first though – there’s that thing where you can’t be the first person to say _I love you_ in a relationship, because it makes you look pathetic and weak, so, when Sam says, “I love you,” in the middle of watching Back to the Future for the thousandth time and Tony pausing it for the thousandth time to point out the inconsistencies in this particular scene, Tony actually goes speechless.

It’s practically a miracle.

“Tony?” Sam says, hesitantly. “Tony, is everything okay?”

“You said you love me,” Tony replies, his voice faint, like he’s about to collapse.

“I did.” Sam’s voice is very careful. “Should I _not_ have said that?”

“No, no, I love you too. I guess I just wasn’t expecting that,” Tony replies, blinking when his mind finally starts to reboot.

“You love me too?” Sam murmurs, his voice a little hushed.

Tony shrugs. “Of course I love you. How could I not?”

Then, he reaches out, without hesitating, and kisses him hard on the mouth. Sam freezes under him for a second before he’s kissing back, fervently, and Tony ends up splayed on top of him, with Sam’s hands under his shirt, settled on the small of his back.

“Question,” Sam says, a little breathlessly, a hot look in his eyes, “if I shut off this movie and you can no longer regale me with your issues with this stupid, _stupid_ movie, will you stop loving me?”

“Hey, the movie isn’t stupid, okay? If they’d just thought some of these things through a little bit more–”

Sam silences Tony with a kiss, and he finds himself melting into it, which is bad and he definitely doesn’t want to set a precedent for it.

Sam switches off the movie, without taking his eyes off Tony, hell, even his lips, and Tony doesn’t mind because he loves Sam, and Sam loves him back, and maybe this time, when he falls in love too easily and too quickly, his flaw might actually give him a happy ending.

* * *

In 2008, Tony is kidnapped by terrorists and held prisoner for three months. He survives multiple fatal cardiothoracic surgeries in a cave without anaesthetic or antiseptic, as well as numerous beatings and assaults and forced drownings, and when he escapes, Yinsen’s blood still dark and red and dried on his hands, he treks through the desert for days and days, skin blistering, arm broken and curled up against his chest, mouth parched and dizzy and a headache pounding behind his eyes, before Rhodey finds him there.

When Rhodey pulls to his feet, mindful of his arm, Sam is there, clutching at him with gentle, careful hands, and Tony leans into him, cheek on his shoulder.

“Hi, baby,” Sam says, roughly, like he’d been crying.

Tony would like to cry too, but he’s fairly certain that there’s no more water left in his body.

“Hi,” he says, nuzzling at Sam’s throat even with the thick padding that he happens to be wearing. “I missed you.”

Sam’s arms tighten around him. “I missed you too. Let’s get you out of this place, huh?”

Tony nods.

* * *

When he wakes up, he’s in the medical unit of the Bagram Air Base. Sam is sitting at his bedside, and Rhodey’s in the chair in one of the corners, sleeping with a blanket draped over him.

Sam’s eyes flicker open, clearly awakened by the shift of Tony’s hand in his. He quickly realises that Tony’s awake, and he reacts, immediately, his eyes widening, as he shuffles closer to the bed.

“Tony, how do you feel?” he asks, urgently.

“Like a Mack truck hit me,” Tony rasps. “ _Did_ a Mack track hit me?”

Sam huffs out a laugh. “No, no, you were just held prisoner by terrorists for three months and then, you spent like three days wandering through the desert without food or water, with a fusion reactor implanted in your chest.”

“So, basically, like a normal Friday night.”

Sam chuckles, his shoulders trembling, and then, it turns wet, thick.

Tony stretches out a hand over the back of Sam’s shoulders, as Sam rests his head on Tony’s belly, mindful of the wires.

“It’s okay, I’m safe, we’re both okay. Everything’s going to be fine,” Tony insists.

Sam sucks in a deep, unsteady breath and sits up, shaking his head, wiping at his eyes. “I just… fuck, it’s been a hard couple of months,” he says, roughly.

“God, I feel that in my bones,” Tony declares, grandly.

Sam starts laughing, and then, he’s crying again, and then, he’s laughing some more when Rhodey slips down from the chair and wakes up with a startled shout, and Tony’s never felt happier than being in this room with the two people he might love most in the world.

* * *

Tony doesn’t tell Sam about the palladium poisoning.

He doesn’t know how to.

So, instead of having an adult conversation like he really should, he amends his will, makes sure to split his estate in four, one quarter for Sharon, one quarter for Rhodey, one quarter for Pepper, and of course, one quarter for Sam. He leaves money aside for both Sam’s niece and nephew to go to whatever college they want, grad school included, and he does the same for Rhodey’s niece, Lila.

They’re the future, after all.

Of course, he tries to be an asshole, to push them all away so they won’t see him deteriorating, but it fails even before it begins and instead, he just withdraws; he stops seeing everyone, stops talking to everyone, shuts himself off in his house and just _withdraws_.

Vanko ruined it all, unfortunately.

And at the Stark Expo, after Tony has managed to successfully synthesise an element that won’t kill him slowly and painfully like the palladium, he tells Sam the truth.

Sam leaves.

Sam has every right to leave.

Tony waits one day, two days, three days, and on the fourth day, he goes to see Sam at his apartment in DC.

Sam opens the door a minute after he knocks.

Tony slides his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “Hi,” he says, almost shy.

Sam leans against the frame. “Hi,” he replies.

“Can I… can I come in?”

Sam considers him for a moment, before sighing and standing aside so that Tony can enter.

Tony feels the relief crumple in his chest as he crosses the threshold. As he does, Sam grabs him, slings an arm around his waist and drags him in so that he can press his lips to the side of his head.

“You’re not dying anymore, right?” Sam mutters against his temple.

Tony shakes his head. “I promise I’m not dying anymore,” he insists.

Sam’s throat flexes, and the emotion is bright across his face, before it shadows over, drains out of his face and becomes something sterner, sharper.

“Okay, let’s talk.”

Tony goes inside, and he knows that all’s not well between them, but there’s hope.

They’ll make it through this.

* * *

He almost dies a lot.

He takes a nuclear bomb into outer space through a wormhole to stop an alien invasion, and his last call is to Sam.

Sam begs him not to do it, to hand the bomb over to someone else, someone who can survive the flight and the return, and Tony has tears in his eyes, tears that he won’t ever let fall, when he tells Sam that there’s no one else, that there’s no more time left, that it’s just him.

The call cuts out when he goes through the wormhole, but not before he’s able to bite out, “I love you.”

He lets the bomb go. It flies out of his hands, makes contact with the Chitauri mothership, and blows it up. The force of the blast ricochets, envelops him, rolls right through his bones, and when he closes his eyes, he sees it, sees red eyes and the threat that should have been, that _will_ come for this vulnerable little planet beneath him.

What can he do to save them, though?

He’s already dying.

* * *

He wakes up, and Steve Rogers, Captain fucking America, is smiling down at him in relief, and all he wants to do is call Sam.

When he finally gets a moment alone, he rings up Sam, waiting impatiently as the dial tone reverberates through the phone.

“Hello? Tony?” Sam demands straight into the phone.

Tony feels the corners of his mouth tipping up and digging into his cheeks as soon as he hears Sam’s voice.

“Hi, baby bird,” he purrs into the phone, trying to be flirtatious.

“Tony, what the _fuck_?” Sam asks, his voice flat, clearly having none of it.

“I’m alive, just so you know.”

“Yeah, I know that, unless this is like some fucking AI that you programmed to contact me once you were dead.”

“Yeah, unfortunately for you, it’s really me.”

“Can that armour of yours still fly?” Sam asks, his voice taut.

Tony frowns. “Yeah, I mean… not the one I’m wearing, of course; it’s taken too much damage, but I have others, so, yeah. I can fly.”

“Then, get your ass to DC, right _now_.”

“Sam–”

“You’re gonna give some stupid fucking reason that I don’t care about, and I’m really not interested right now, because I just spent the last thirty minutes going from angry to grieving because I was pretty much fucking sure that my _boyfriend_ was _dead_. So, if you don’t mind, I’d really like it if you came here to DC, Tony.”

“Sam, of course I’ll come,” Tony says, softly. “I never even thought twice about it.”

“Oh,” Sam says, lamely.

“I love you,” Tony goes onto say. “I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you too,” Sam replies, his voice unbearably soft. He makes a hurt little noise at the back of his throat. “God, that was like the worst half an hour of my fucking _life_.”

“Oh, it was mine too.”

Both of them laugh at the exact same time.

“I love you so much, Sam.” Tony’s voice is rough. “I know… I know I take a lot, okay. I take a lot where emotional labour is concerned–”

“Tony, _no–_ ”

“Tony, yes,” Tony says, sternly, “because I do. I do take a lot, and it’s not just from you, but it’s from the people around me. I’m hard to deal with it, and I get it, I really do, and I hope… I hope you understand how much you mean to me, how much I love you, the things that I would do for you, Sam, because I would do them all. I love you so much.”

“I know, I know you do, honey.” Sam sounds like he has gravel stuck in his throat.

“I just… I hope you know how much I appreciate you, how much I just… I love you. _I love you_.”

“I love you too,” Sam says, softly, “and you know what, tin man, you’re too hard on yourself.”

Tony huffs.

“You _are_ ,” he insists. “You are too hard on yourself, and no offence, but you think too much of yourself. I love you. We are in this _together_ , and frankly, I have never failed to call you out on your shit and I never will. We have a good thing going. If you piss me off, I will tell you, and we will talk about it, and yes, that includes having an adult conversation, which I know you hate, but we will sort all of our shit out, and when we’re done, we will have hot make-up sex, _and we will be fine_. So, you see, you’re not the asshole leech that you think you are, and I would never allow you to be. You’re a lot more of a decent person than you think you are, you know, and we are not some fucked-up dysfunctional, toxic, abusive mess, where you take advantage of my good nature and I allow you to, the way _you_ think we are. Frankly, you’re insulting _me_ by thinking like that, and you’re insulting the man I love, so shut up about it.”

Tony’s throat flexes, and the emotion is thick there. He swallows hard.

“I _hate_ having adult conversations, but I _do_ like the make-up sex.”

A laugh escapes Sam. “I know you did, baby. Now, get that pretty little ass of yours over here, so we can have hot, life-affirming, _thank God you didn’t die up in space fighting an alien invasion_ sex.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony clears his throat, “I’ll be there soon. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon, baby,” Sam says, quietly, and hangs up.

On his way out, he sticks his head into the lounge. The rest of the Avengers are sprawled all around his couches, stuffed-full of shawarma, which he realised only when he got there was _meat_ , and too tired to even lift their heads.

“I’d love to stay and be a good host, but I’ve got a hot date,” he says, cheerfully.

* * *

The thing is, no one knows about him and Sam.

Well, no one but the important people in their lives.

So, Rhodey knows, and Pepper knows, and Sharon knows, and Aunt Peggy knows, and Darlene and Paul know, and Sarah and Gideon know, and of course, Jim and Jody know, and Rhodey’s family knows that he’s seeing someone, just not who he’s seeing.

But other than that, Tony has been very careful about the tabloids not even getting an inch of Tony and Sam, not because he’s ashamed of him or something stupid like that, but because what they have is something that Tony will not allow the rest of the world to ruin because they have some unnatural fascination with his life, and they have some perennial need to pass judgment on the choices that he makes.

That won’t happen this time.

But then, people start to find out.

Alright, maybe ‘people’ is an overstatement.

On the eleventh of January in 2014, Tony wakes up in Sam’s apartment, tangled up in the sheets with him, as the bed dips.

The nice, firm belly that he was laying his head on suddenly disappears out from underneath him, and he hits the mattress with a start, his eyes blearily opening to find Sam quickly dressing in a tight shirt and black jogging pants.

“Where are you going?” he mumbles, making a smacking noise with his sour mouth.

“For a run, baby,” Sam murmurs, kissing him on the head.

“Oh, okay, have fun.” He pauses. “With Steve, right? He doesn’t–”

“You gotta stop worrying, Tony,” Sam sighs. “Steve doesn’t know about us. Although, I don’t think he’s gonna like it much when he finds out.”

Tony’s now properly awake; he turns onto his back. “I know,” he sighs. “He’s gonna think we set him up, so that you’d meet him on his run, and that, I don’t know, maybe I wanted you to pass information on him to me. He’s going to be _pissed_. And you know, he already doesn’t like me.”

Sam snorts. “I don’t know why. You’re such a delight.”

Tony glowers at him. “You don’t get to say that. We’re boyfriend and boyfriend.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “It’s not going to be pretty,” he warns. “Besides, I already feel like shit. I feel like… I don’t know, he’s opening up, you know? He likes to pretend that he has his shit together, but the whole being thrown into the twenty-first century after seventy years in the ice is getting to him. I think… I think he might start to see me as a friend? And I don’t want to ruin that.”

“I don’t want to ruin that either,” Tony promises, fervently. “I know you guys met each other… organically, and I know if he finds out about me, it’ll ruin it. I know you like him, and he likes you, and I don’t want to fuck that up for you, Sammy.”

“Hey, you could never fuck anything up,” Sam says, firmly, “and I’m not ashamed of you either. So, if Rogers finds out, we’ll…” he sighs, “we’ll just have to deal with it, I suppose.”

“We suppose,” Tony says, dryly.

Sam hums and kisses Tony again. “Try and get some more sleep, hm? I’ll be back soon.”

“That… is the best idea you’ve had in a while,” Tony gushes.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Better than last night?”

Tony purses his lips last night. “Okay, best idea that you’ve had in the last eight hours?” he offers.

* * *

Tony is making _dosai_ on the stove when Sam returns from his run, all sweaty and firm, especially when he wraps his arms around Tony, making him squirm in his embrace.

“Look at you, being a good house husband,” Sam murmurs into Tony’s shoulder, brushing his mouth over the curve.

Tony scowls. “To be a house husband, one requires a ring,” he says, haughtily.

Sam grins against Tony’s shoulder. “Is that a hint?”

“It’s a sincere request that you should probably have a shower.”

“Oh, please,” Sam scoffs, swinging him around, pressing him up against the counter, “you like me all sweaty.”

Tony curls his hand around the nape of Sam’s neck, kissing him tenderly initially, before he deepens in, sliding his tongue into Sam’s mouth.

Then, the doorbell rings.

Sam sighs and pulls away. “I’ll get it, because I wouldn’t have any clue what to do with _that_ if it started to burn.”

Tony laughs and turns back to the stove. “Good call.”

He hears the door open and a telling pause. “Hey, man,” Sam says, carefully.

“I’m sorry about this. We need a place to lay low,” comes a familiar, despondent voice that has Tony freezing.

He looks around, looking for somewhere to hide, wondering whether it would be pathetic if he chose to hide in the bedroom and lock the door. He takes a deep, steadying breath, continues to focus on the _dosai._

Maybe Rogers will just go away.

But then, Natasha says something that completely destroys that hope. “Everyone we know is trying to kill us.”

Tony knows even before Sam speaks exactly what he’s going to say.

“Not everyone.”

Tony, once again, considers running into the bedroom, but he also knows that Sam really wouldn’t appreciate it.

He already knows how that interaction is going to go.

_“Tony, did you seriously go and hide in the bedroom?”_

_“Well, I didn’t know what to do. Sue me for panicking!”_

Steve and Natasha enter the kitchen and freeze when they see him standing by the stove.

Tony waves, awkwardly. “I kind of resent the whole _everyone we know is trying to kill us thing_ ,” he drawls, “considering _I’m_ someone you know and I’m absolutely not trying to kill you. I just don’t have enough time for that. I started watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey from the beginning, and it’s kind of a fucking trip. In any case, I’m heavily invested and I just don’t have the time for anything else.”

“How… how are you _here_?” Steve demands.

“Oh, uh,” Tony looks at Sam, helplessly, hoping that Sam might have the right answer “I don’t know how to actually say this–”

“Tony’s my partner,” Sam says, without missing a beat, almost a challenge in his eyes, like he wants Steve to say something awful and judgmental about them so that Sam would have the opportunity to punch Captain America in the face, “and when I say partner, I mean that we fuck pretty much every night, and we’re crazy in love with each other as well.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, slowly, “what _he_ said.”

“I did _not_ know this,” Natasha says, sounding displeased that she’d been in the dark.

“I feel like I should add that to my resume.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the idea that the two of you know each other,” Steve insists, his jaw taut, his mouth turned down at the corners. “I mean, when we met in the park, did you… did you guys set this up–”

“No,” Tony and Sam say, immediately.

“I mean,” Sam sighs, “I knew who you were in the park, not just because of Tony whining about you–”

“I did _not_ whine.”

“–but also because you’re kind of an important part of American history. Tony and I did not set this up. He had nothing to do with the fact that we started running together. He _did_ know that we were running together, but… well–”

“Look, let’s be clear about something,” Tony says, bluntly. “You don’t like me, Rogers.”

Steve reels back, taken aback and almost hurt.

“You don’t like me very much, and that’s okay, because there’s not a lot of people who _do_ like me. But Sam? Sam’s better than me. He’s kinder, more generous, braver, more loyal, genuine, honest, just… an all-around better person than I am, and you needed a friend, and so did he, and you know what? I didn’t want to fuck that up for the two of you, so I stayed out of it. There was no conspiracy, no plan, no trick; we weren’t laughing at you behind your back. I just didn’t want to fuck things up.”

“Tony, I–” Steve falls short of finishing his sentence. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I know what you can say,” Tony says, briskly. “You two look like shit, and I think you should clean up, both of you, while I finish the _dosai_. How does that sound?”

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but Natasha grabs him by the wrist, tugging him away.

“Tony–” Sam says, softly.

“I don’t need further confirmation that the guy that my father loved more than I did thinks I’m a piece of shit,” Tony says, firmly.

“Tony,” Sam murmurs, wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist.

“God, he’s such a dick,” Tony hisses.

“He is,” Sam agrees.

Tony pauses. “You don’t really believe that,” he says, sullenly.

“I don’t, but you do, and I support you,” Sam insists.

“You really are a good boyfriend.”

Sam snorts. “I’m the _best_ boyfriend,” he mutters.

* * *

“So, SHIELD is HYDRA. HYDRA didn’t die when you killed the Red Skull in 1945, and now, they’ve infiltrated a pseudo-governmental intelligence organisation with access to missiles. Wonderful.” Tony lifts his head. “Thankfully for you, I’m not going to be _that_ guy and remind you that computers, weapons, things of that nature tend to be in _my_ wheelhouse yet you didn’t come to me for help.”

“Tony, we just weren’t sure–” Steve exchanges a look.

“I’m also not going to be _that_ guy who reminds you that insinuating that a man who happens to be part-Jewish and a brown man is a secretly a Nazi is very, very inappropriate,” Tony drawls.

Steve colours, the red deep in his cheeks, and clearly, he resolves to remain silent.

“If we can get back to the topic at hand,” Natasha says, efficiently, changing the subject, “the question is: who in SHIELD could launch a domestic missile strike?”

“Pierce,” Steve says, immediately.

Tony makes a face – he’d never liked Pierce, especially after the man had come onto him right after his parents’ funeral.

“Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world,” Tony mutters under his breath.

“But he's not working alone, Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star,” Steve points out.

“So was Jasper Sitwell.”

“So, the real question is: how do the two most wanted people in Washington,” Steve sends a furtive look at Tony, “and a guy who’s probably the most famous superhero and has the biggest following on all social media kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?”

“The answer is: you don’t,” Sam says, firmly, dropping a file down onto the breakfast table in front of Steve.

Steve frowns. “What’s this?”

Sam shrugs. “Call it a resume.”

Natasha picks up the file, opening it up to the photo of Sam with his pararescue team. “Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you.” She sounds intrigued and turns to Steve. “You didn't say he was a para-rescue.”

Steve peers at the photo. “Is this Riley?”

Tony sobers at once, closing his eyes.

Riley’s death had been bad, very bad.

Sam didn’t come out of it easily, and for a long certain, Tony was sure that he wouldn’t actually come out of it. He had doubted them so much, doubted Sam, and then, when Sam climbed out of the grief and the depression and had channelled that right into helping people, where Tony might have just succumbed to it all, well, he realised in that moment that Sam would always be a much stronger person than him, and falling in love with him had already started to happen without Tony even realising.

Sam’s expression shadows over at the mention of Riley just as Tony thought it would. “Yeah,” he says, his voice terse and clipped.

“I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use, a stealth chute?” Natasha asks, curiously.

“No, these.” Sam flips through the file to the part about the EXO-7 FALCON wings, showing it to Steve.

Steve’s eyes skim over it, and his eyebrows fly somewhere near his hairline. “I thought you said you were a pilot,” he says, bemused.

Sam snorts. “I never said pilot.”

“And these… these were made by Stark Industries.” Steve casts another furtive look Tony’s way.

“It’s how we met, when I went down to the base to fit them for it, trial it with them,” Tony explains.

Steve looks like he’s about to agree to Sam’s request, when he sighs and shakes his head. “I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason,” he insists.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Dude, Captain America needs my help, and you’re taking my boyfriend to go and fight Nazis. There are better reason to get back in.”

“But…” Steve looks at Tony, who shrugs.

“He’s been abnormally patient with me when I go throwing myself into danger. I’m not going to ask him to step down. We’ll go together.”

Steve sighs, rubbing at his temples. “Where can we get our hands on one of these things?”

Sam grins, full of gladness. “The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall.”

Steve looks at Natasha and Tony, who look at each other and shrug.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Tony promises.


End file.
